


Light-Bug

by Lunarium



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Origins
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-04
Updated: 2016-07-04
Packaged: 2018-07-19 23:55:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,388
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7382653
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lunarium/pseuds/Lunarium
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She was not darkness. She was a vessel of light.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Light-Bug

**Author's Note:**

  * For [The_Wavesinger](https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Wavesinger/gifts).



> For The_Wavesinger. Your Ungoliant prompt intrigued me! :)
> 
> Many thanks to my wonderful beta, AmyFortuna!

She was not darkness. She was a vessel of light, her origin near to Varda and her Maia Ilmarë. In those days they called her Calapí, Light-bug, for she was tiny as a mote, drifting throughout the early existence of the First Music. She collected the remnants of light left behind from the workings of Varda and Ilmarë, collecting them in her soft tiny belly that glowed with their warm bright light. She guided fellow Ainur through the nothing amidst the void, the light in her belly glimmering with the Music. 

Carefree and endless happiness marked her earliest memories. 

Her life changed in a bolt of dark lightning. As the Ainur contended with one of their own, one who seemed to think himself above even Eru, Calapí was caught in the crossfire. For the most part she remained oblivious to their battle, being so tiny and unimportant amongst the Valar and Maiar, till one of Melkor’s bolts of black lightning struck her squarely in the chest and she fell backwards into nothingness and perpetual darkness. She would have thought herself dead had she not made contact then with the solid ground of Arda. 

The impact cost Calapí her vision. For countless years, she could not see the light around her nor the light within herself, and nor could she hear anything but the battle. When the chaos eventually dissolved, it was to blackness and silence, the cold ground underneath her untouched by any light save for the fading flickering glow of her belly. In fright she burrowed a cave for herself and hid. 

When she dared to, she released some of the light to build a protective sheath around herself to keep out the cold, as well as to hide from Melkor and any other lurking danger. The simple task cost most of her remaining light, weakening her until she nearly perished in the cave. But when the first creature that passed her was smaller and weaker, she grabbed hold and consumed it, and to her relief found light within it that glowed a deep red in her belly. 

In this manner she lived for thousands of years, as Arda continued to change in the battle between Melkor and the Valar. The rumbles under her feet did not disturb her, for her still-healing eyes were steered towards the stars. How very cold their light seemed, so far from her in her growing agony. She continued to feast on the beasts she found, their light sustaining her: she grew double, triple, a hundred fold in size. Her legs became eight in total, her eyes sharp and piercing through darkness, her bite poisonous. The light from her victims could be spun into long webs, marvelous architectural beauties she alone could travel without getting entangled in, her horrible grin the last thing they would see. Throughout the land she became known by a new name, a monstrous spider all feared to encounter. 

But each meal only made the need for more light grow, and she sat in her cave and watched the stars with bitter hate, remembering the days of their warmth in her belly, of that complete satisfaction. She could not remember her own name from her youth, but she remembered the taste of the lights of Varda and Ilmarë.. 

Disdain filled her heart for the very things she once loved. But most of all she detested the one who brought forth her agony. 

When Melkor himself had sought her, many years later after she had made her way north and west, and asked for her aid, her heart twisted with hate and glee at the thought of revenge, and of the sweet taste of light she would soon finally come to enjoy. Her body, after so long abstaining from the Valarin light, seared in agony. All the blood of all the beasts in the world would not quench her lust. But she hid her pain well, and grinned for Melkor as she agreed to being ordered around like a slave. 

It was well worth it for the taste of the Trees’ light upon her lips. The first touch was so crystal smooth, crisp and cool, and instantly turned soothingly warm down her throat. Sighing, she could not hold back her lust and suckled on the light, more light than she had ever consumed as a tiny mote before she had become known as Ungoliant. She could feel her belly expanding, nearly bursting with the great warmth of the holy light now swimming inside her, entrapped within, something now _hers_ , something which now only she could use to spin the most beautiful webs. 

Much later, she grew aware of Melkor pulling her away, though she kept trying to suckle. Her own shadow had seeped into the trees and poisoned them, causing them to gnaw and twist as if in agony. The stars high above glazed before her hazy vision before being swallowed in darkness, blinded, it seemed, by her own inner light. She grinned.

She had served her purpose to Melkor. He no longer needed her,, but her own plans were only beginning. She could detect the strips of light between his fingers, the numerous jewels in both hands. Her belly ached for them. Her heart yearned for her revenge. 

She waited till the right moment presented itself before demanding that Melkor reward her for her deeds. Pressed against the rocky wall of the mountains, surrounded by howling winds and the cold, he could do nothing but indulge her desire. One by one he gave up each one of the master elf’s jewels save for the three greatest jewels which he held firmly in his other hand. Those three, she realized, still held the light of the Two Trees. 

She coaxed him at first, but Melkor would not give in, and her request turned into demands until lust twisted into pure anger and loathing, remembering her suffering by Melkor’s action. She lunged forward and seized his hand with her pincers. The sharp cries of agony, rippling through the mountains, sated her more than golden fruit or silver branch ever would. As his curses shattered the night, she slipped through the shadows, taking with her the light, though regrettably not the three eternal lights that seared and glimmered brilliantly in Melkor’s hand. 

Back in the shadows, she rested, peaceful and full for a time. The light soothed her nerves, though when she was awake, she still trembled from the pain, perhaps due to the inferior light of the beasts she had eaten before. 

She struggled to get back on her feet. The light, her light now, she reacquainted herself with, recalling how it had felt the during the first days after she had fallen into the world. The webs which she spun were more magnificent and terrible than ever before. 

And for the first time, she felt her own body pulse with something akin to a dozen heartbeats, and none of which were her own. One day she awoke to the urgent need to spin a web, but instead, from her own light, she spun forth many more lives, entire little spiders such as herself, tiny black vessels full of their own light, which crawled away, knowing their way instantly around the world. 

The act exhausted her of the last from the Light of the Two Trees. It was not long before the pain of the starvation reawakened, the unpleasant familiar pulse from her past. She fed on the local beasts and any of the strange new beings that walked on two legs. Their light was greater than the mere feral creatures, but only by a little. 

The stars above mocked her. The Sun, Arien’s rays piercing whenever she dared to look up, laughed at her. Tirion’s mirror was a cold reminder of the stars and of her childhood, its silvery surface a memory of the sweet taste of silver branches between her pincers. 

One dark night when neither Arien nor Tirion disturbed her, her gaze turned towards her own belly. A tiny flicker of light, a single star, still existed, but it was not so far away. This was obtainable, right within reach. And she began feasting, her pincers working fast against her own flesh. She was, after all, not a creature of darkness. She was a vessel of light.


End file.
